Posted in: Boom, Comics, DC Comics | Tagged: Becky Cloonan Michael W Conrad, harrogate, james tynion, somethig is killing the chilsren, thought bubble

When DC Vertigo Turned Down Something Is Killing The Children

Published Sat, 13 Nov 2021 12:27:10 -0600

by Rich Johnston

Last updated Mon, 13 Mar 2023 11:37:16 -0500

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Something Is Killing The Children time! At Thought Bubble Comic Con in Harrogate today, James Tynion IV attended a Thought Bubble panel with Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad dubbed Calling All Creeps – A Horror Masterclass, talking about the art of telling horror stories in comic books, sharing their motivations, their work processes and their own tastes in horror.

We also learned that James Tynion IV has the title for the comic Something Is Killing The Children long before he actually had the comic book. Nut once he did, he pitched it to DC Vertigo, who turned it down, they also told him that Something Is Killing The Children couldn't be the title of the comic book – "Mabe the first arc, but not the title of the comic".

When DC Vertigo Turned Down Something Is Killing The Children — James Tynion IV at Thought Bubble, photo Rich Johnston

Thankfully Boom Studios decided that the title was fine. Indeed, it became part of a new trend for "sentence titles" that Matthew Rosenberg may have pioneered with We Can Never Go Home from Black Mask Press and now seems inevitable, with the likes of All Our Children Are Junkies, We Only Find Them When They're Dead and Matthew Rosenberg's latest, What's The Furthest Place From Here? It reads more like a novel or a film where the name of the main character doesn't necessarily have to be the name of the comic book. There are other options now. There is no news if anyone at DC Comics saw the six-figure sales numbers of Something Is Killing The Children since, or the half a million sales for the spinoff House Of Slaughter (which is a title that DC Comics would probably much have preferred) and tried to fit their entire fist in their mouth. But it is telling that when James Tynion pitched The Nice House On The Lake that DC was a lot more receptive and published a sentence title without any pushback…

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